


temper is a weapon (we hold by the blade)

by toadsage



Series: never find peace (the war is too pretty) [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Warlord, Canon-Typical Violence, Dragons, Drug Abuse, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multi, Nymphs & Dryads
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 14:10:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16243247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toadsage/pseuds/toadsage
Summary: A man wakes up in a strange place, accompanied by two mentors intent on using him for their own plans. With nothing else to do, he goes along with it.Two years after Sasuke's death, Juugo is desperately trying to hold together the broken pieces of the Otogakure and the world as he knows it. It's hard to see the world for what it is from the bottom of a bottle.Sitting by the edge of a lake, a monk and a martyr, Obito yearns for his lost love.The three of them, deeply impacted by the events of one moment, are about to learn what happens when others' actions start to have consequences.





	temper is a weapon (we hold by the blade)

**Author's Note:**

> :) this is the sequel to my fic "the edge of a blade". if you haven't read that one, this won't make much sense, so i'd recommend reading it first. this fic goes more into depth about non-Sasuke characters and the realities of running a country, but i hope you enjoy it!!! a warning - this fic does deal with alcohol/drug abuse, grief/mourning, and canon-typical violence as some of its main themes, so if that's a trigger to you this may not be the best fic for you.

He’s never seen this before. There are many other things he’s seen, expanses of blankness and tiny creatures with little spots, but he’s never seen a creature like this. 

 

It has yellow fur on the top of its head and it stands and walks like him, but it doesn’t look like him. It’s covered in a strange sort of exoskeleton, dark blues and greens that cover its skin. He’s never seen something like this. 

 

“Hello,” is the call it makes, and he doesn’t know what to do. “Hello, I’ve been looking for you,” it calls, and it’s strange. He feels like he understands this, somehow. He doesn’t really know what understanding means. “Can you talk?” it asks, and the reaction he gives is so ingrained in him that he doesn’t realise he’s shaking his head until he does it. 

 

“Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. You haven’t been here for a very long time, have you?” 

He lifts his shoulders. 

“Ah, darn. I didn’t think I’d be the one to find you first. I don’t think I’m very important to you, huh?” 

The sounds that it is making register to have some  _ meaning,  _ but he doesn’t  _ understand  _ what it’s saying. 

“I’m Minato,” it - Minato, he supposes - says, “do you have a name?”

He shakes his head. 

“Okay, okay. This place is so empty. I wonder what he did to you,” Minato says, and he shrugs again. “That’s okay. Walk with me?” 

 

He was going to walk in that direction anyway, and the concept of company is foreign but he is intrigued by what he can learn from this Minato. 

 

“I really don’t know how Tobirama did this. It’s really hard! Gotta think about all the kinds of things you don’t know, which is hard because all of the concepts I have predicate on your knowledge of  _ other  _ things - it’s pretty hard to remember what you do and don’t know. Oh geez, I hope  _ I  _ get this right, or at least Tobirama finds us. That would be for the best, I think.” 

 

He doesn’t say anything. 

 

“Okay, uh, let’s practice talking first, okay?”    
He shrugs. Guess so. 

“Can you say ‘aaaa’?”

 

It takes him a few goes. Making the sound hurts him, his mouth feels all dry and his throat feels like he’s swallowing rocks. He gets it, kind of. 

 

“Great! Now ‘eee’ for me, please.” 

 

—

 

Sasuke was never one for material possessions. He never valued things that were beautiful, or anything that displayed wealth. If it wasn’t functional, he wasn’t interested. He never owned anything he didn't use. When he died, he didn't die owning much - for a king. 

 

Karin, Suigetsu, and Juugo mostly split his things three ways. They sent some trinkets to Konoha, things they thought Naruto and Sakura ought to have. Karin has decided she holds some measure of affection for her cousin - not enough to dissuade her from trying to eradicate the largest ninja village - but enough that she is happy to send him small things of Sasuke's. 

 

Out of his main possessions, they all took a piece. Karin got his war, his sword still fresh with blood and warm from his hand. Karin got his community, his legions, his anger and need for vengeance and his righteousness, his principles, his quest. Suigetsu got his words, his books and diaries and writing, a tattoo on Suigetsu's arm that Sasuke inked in with a safety pin and a ballpoint pen years ago in his shaky (yet calligraphic, in the way all kids who grow up in old rich ninja clans learn to write) hand. It says “hold your sword by the blade” and the double entendre of masturbation is the reason Suigetsu agreed to it. 

 

There wasn't much else for Juugo to take, not after he'd let Karin and Suigetsu have first dibs on Sasuke's shit. Sasuke's clothes are too small, Sasuke's height and breadth were great, but Juugo's is greater still. His horse is out of the question for much the same reason. His snakes are gone, and his wealth was all reinvested into the war effort. 

 

It left Juugo with Sasuke's addictions, a generous collection of liquor and tobacco and marijuana and the accoutrements that one amasses when one abuses substances like it is their job. 

 

Juugo barely sleeps. He can't, anymore. He's not scared of the war, or dying, or being captured. Juugo has never cared much for winning. He's always been more concerned with when he is going snap, how he is going to cause destruction he can never take back. He couldn't bear losing the trust he's so carefully cultivated. He's terrified he's going to snap and slaughter men in the most horrible way, tearing them limb from limb, destroying them so thoroughly their own mothers wouldn't recognise them. 

 

Juugo likes to think he finds the same solace in the bottom of a bottle that Sasuke does. Liquor has always calmed him down, made him sleepy, calmed his anxieties. He feels more in control after a drink or five, feels less like his skin is going to peel off in big oogy chunks and let the monster inside of him out. 

 

He sits, usually outside his ger in the cold night air, and has a smoke and a drink until he passes out of drunkenness or sheer exhaustion. He always wakes a few hours later, feeling like shit, and he takes another shot. 

 

—

 

Talking is hard, but at least he knows a lot of words. That comes naturally to him, what he has to say, even if saying it pains him. Minato is chatty, and it won’t leave him alone. It seems to want to know everything about him, but it’s also more entertaining than a beetle, so he lets it stay with him. 

 

“Minato?” he says, and it’s getting easier to get the words out every time he says them. 

“Yes?” 

“What is … a …. Tobiro ma?” he finally gets out. It’s frustrating, how long it takes for him to get even a sentence out. He has so many  _ thoughts,  _ he just can’t verbalise them.

“Tobirama is the name of one of my, uh, friends. He taught me a lot.”    
“Name? What’s that?” 

“What’s a name? Um, damn. How do I explain it? A name is something you use to refer to another thing - usually another person, so you can differentiate them.”

“What’s a person?”

“A person is… like you or me, you know? Someone with intelligent thought and is human and the like.”

“So you’re a person, and I’m a person,” he says, trying to feel the concept out. Minato seems to group them both together in a category: they’re both a ‘person’. He doesn’t know how he feels like that. He supposes he’s kind of like Minato. They both have hands and feet and a head. 

 

“Can you remember your name, yet?” Minato asks, curious. Minato always gives him this look, like he’s trying to see something deep inside him, looking for something that he’s never said anything about. 

“My name?” he thinks about it. 

 

A name, he supposes, isn’t just words, it’s not random. It’s something intentional, chosen, something that he can use to refer to himself. What’s his name? He thinks hard about it, trying to piece together the tiny little bits of memory he still retains, thinking about a  _ name  _ that could possibly be his. 

 

“I don’t know my name,” he says.

 

Minato looks long and hard at him, like he’s searching for something that he can find in his soul. Whatever it is, Minato doesn’t seem to find it.

 

—

 

Juugo doesn’t inspire the same emotions in Karin that Sasuke did, not the ones that kept Sasuke from the full heat of her wrath. Karin has never gone easy on Juugo, not like she  _ always  _ did with Sasuke, when she treated him like fragile crystal, like he could break in her hands if she pressed too hard. 

 

“She’s mad at you,” Suigetsu says to him, standing above him. He’s his hands in his pockets, pelvis jutting out and shoulders slouched to broadcast to the whole camp that he’s cool, he really doesn’t care. Everyone here is full of shit. 

“Sucks,” Juugo says. 

“You should go see her.” 

“Don’t wanna,” Juugo replies, evenly, and Suigetsu’s lucky Juugo doesn’t lose his shit all over his ass or his feet. 

 

His head feels like someone took a meat cleaver through his skull, and if someone doesn’t give him something soon he’s going to lose his stomach all over the peace discussions with Konoha. Juugo wishes the Hokage could just chidori him and get it all over with. 

 

“You’re an idiot,” Suigetsu says, like Juugo doesn’t know, “She said she’s three seconds away from pouring all your bottles out on his gravesite.” 

Juugo snorts. “That wouldn’t stop me.” 

“You think she doesn’t know? C’mon man, she’s losing her shit. He’s gone, and now you basically are too.” 

In a flash of anger, anger towards Sasuke for dying and a need for some sort of vindication, Juugo says: “He was going long before he died.” 

 

Juugo sees when his words hit Sui in the heart, worming through his ribcage to his mushy innards, the ones Sui always says he doesn’t have. He sees the second Sui’s face shutters off, closes like a locked door. Juugo can’t stop himself from saying shit like this, even though he knows it’s alienating Sui from him. He’s losing Suigetsu in more ways than one, and he has no one to blame but himself.

 

Taka was such a foolish exercise. Without their love for Sasuke, there’s nothing to glue them together. They used to all hate each other. Juugo wishes they still could. 

 

“Go see her,” Suigetsu bites out, and turns around and Juugo sees the bite on the side of his neck someone left last night. Juugo wonders if it was Karin or someone else. Juugo wonders if Suigetsu knows Karin’s fucking other people. Juugo wonders if Suigetsu’s fucking isn’t just like Juugo’s drinking, just better disguised as intimacy. 

 

Around him, the camp is winding down for the day, making the most of the last dregs of daylight before sundown and everyone packs in for the night. People are tying the horses up, making their way towards the mess, cleaning their weapons and stoking the fire. This camp hasn’t seen battle for a few days, Suigetsu’s effect on Karin enough to stop her from waging all out war. 

 

Juugo picks himself off the ground, takes out a cigarette, and lights it the old fashioned way. Juugo’s never been good at jutsu or anything, he’s never had the power Sasuke had, nor the control of Karin, Kimimaro, or Kabuto. When brute force isn’t an option, Juugo becomes remarkably useless. Karin doesn’t need him right now. There are better things he could do with his time. 

 

— 

 

“I think it could be Kabuto,” he says. It’s the only name he can remember. 

“Kabuto, huh?” Minato sounds surprised, but he doesn’t go with it. He doesn’t seem to like it. 

“Is that wrong?” 

“I don’t know,” Minato says, “you tell me.” 

“It’s the only name I can remember.” 

“Then it must be correct,” Minato deduces, and Kabuto feels like he’s wrong. 

 

He doesn’t know what else to say. 

 

Minato has shown him the difference between the leaves on the trees, the rough feeling of cracked bark under his fingertips, how you can distinguish between the croaking of the frogs and of the toads if you sit still and  _ really  _ listen. Kabuto has decided he likes Minato, even if he doesn’t know anyone else. 

 

“Where is this place?” he asks, when Minato finally tells him about a place he used to live. The concept of ‘places’ blew Kabuto’s mind a little bit, that there could be something that isn’t the everpresent and overwhelming  _ nothingness  _ of here. Konoha, he called it, and apparently it had houses - dwellings one built to shelter oneself from something Minato called ‘cold’ and another thing called ‘rain’. Kabuto has never seen water falling from the sky like Minato described, but he assumes that Minato isn’t lying. He has to, since he doesn’t know most things Minato tells him about. 

“Konoha?”

“No. Here.” 

“I don’t think I can tell you that,” Minato says. He’s got an emotion on his face, something Kabuto has never seen before. He doesn’t understand.

“Why?”

“Because…” Minato drifts off, looking up at the underside of the treetops, watching the leaves stand still above them, “I don’t know.” 

 

Kabuto has to believe Minato, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

 

—

 

For the longest time, Juugo really thought he was heartless. He was a monster, after all, a freak of nature that killed an entire village because he was angry. Only a heartless monster would do that, fly into such terrifying rages that the only thing able to stop him was Kimimaro or God himself. 

 

When Kimimaro died, Juugo wasn’t even really that sad, really. He wasn’t sad, he didn’t cry or weep or become inconsolable with grief. He was mostly just angry: at the world for fucking him over, once again; at himself, for not being able to  _ stop it,  _ too busy focusing on unimportant things to  _ help  _ his only  _ friend _ ; at Sasuke, for being the reason his lifeline lost his life. He was just angry, as usual, with no one to stop it. 

 

Orochimaru didn’t really help, Juugo had started to realise, Orochimaru wasn’t the kind of guy who really wanted Juugo to get better. Orochimaru liked him angry. 

 

Juugo stayed angry. 

 

When Kimimaro was ripped so suddenly from Juugo’s life, he felt like a boat whose anchor had been cut off and was left to float out into a storm. With no tether to reality, he didn’t know what to do. Without any sort of direction, how could they expect him to calm down, to process his loss normally, to recover and move on? He had no conception of such a task, no understanding of the process by which one stops grieving. 

 

What was he expected to do with all this anger? It was unleashed on experiments and villagers and anyone in his path. All this anger for a man he viewed as his god. All this anger for a man he found out was all too mortal. 

 

Juugo is a monster, in a lot of ways. Isn’t a human able to regulate his emotions, able to understand mortality, able to grow and change and begin anew? Able to let go and grab on as he pleases, to find new things when he has outgrown his interests? Isn’t a human able to feel? Juugo is a heartless monster. 

 

All he feels is anger. Nothing about him has changed, not through Sasuke. Sasuke, his second friend, his second god, his second saviour that he placed all of his hopes and dreams and aspirations onto, the man he weighed down into an early grave with his worries and desires. Sasuke may have killed himself, he may have been trying to kill himself since Juugo met him, but Juugo helped dig his grave. 

 

—

 

Minato is kind, and his friend (Minato taught Kabuto about  _ friends  _ and what  _ friendship  _ is and how some people have it with others. Kabuto still doesn’t quite grasp the concept) Tobirama is not kind. Tobirama bites out words like he’s ripping a piece of bark apart with his teeth, aggressive and deep and forceful. 

 

Kabuto doesn’t know if he likes Tobirama, but some part of him feels a sort of kinship with the man. 

 

Tobirama drinks a lot. He doesn’t say where he gets all these drinks from, and Kabuto stopped asking after he got blank stares in response. Tobirama is very angry. At what, Kabuto couldn’t even begin to guess. 

 

“Hey,” Tobirama says, when Minato’s gone away, doing something else. Kabuto has become reticent to travel anywhere when Minato’s gone, worried Minato’s not going to be able to find him again. Kabuto can’t find shit in this place. It’s just a lot of nothing, and sometimes it’s something. But mostly nothing.

 

Kabuto says nothing. 

 

“Hey, kid, I’m talking to you,” Tobirama throws something at Kabuto, it doesn’t even get close to hitting him. They’ve been sitting among the trees in silence, staring at each other, for a long time. Tobirama’s been drinking. Kabuto hasn’t been doing anything. 

“Yes?” 

“You got a light?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“A, y’know. Aren’t you known for fire jutsu?” 

Kabuto doesn’t even know what ‘fire jutsu’ is. “I think you have the wrong person.”

“I don’t think I do,” Tobirama spits back, and Kabuto is starting to think he and Tobirama are the  _ opposite  _ of friends, whatever that is. “Doesn’t matter.” 

 

Tobirama sighs, puts his drink down and shifts in his seat, taking something out of his pocket. Two things, actually, two things Kabuto doesn’t know. One’s a brown cylinder, long and round, and the other’s a small metal square. Tobirama bites the end off the brown cylinder, but spits it out, which confuses Kabuto. He and Minato have gone through eating, although they don’t need to do it. Kabuto doesn’t know why you’d bite something you weren’t going to eat. The metal square opens, splits open like a fruit. Kabuto can’t see exactly what Tobirama’s doing from the distance he’s sitting at, but the square makes a clicking noise, and then there’s a bloom of orange-yellow-red coming from it. Tobirama puts it on the end of the cylinder, turning the cylinder, until he’s satisfied with the way it seems to have changed. 

 

When Tobirama takes the cylinder away from his mouth, he blows out smoke. Kabuto’s captivated. 

 

“What’s that?” he can’t help asking, even though he knows Tobirama doesn’t want to talk to him. 

“A… cigar,” Tobirama looks at him like he’s an idiot. Kabuto hates that. 

“Cigar? The orange stuff?” 

“Fuck, kid. You’re either the best actor I’ve ever met, or you really don’t know shit.”

“I don’t have a memory,” Kabuto says, because that’s what Minato says. 

“Oh, you have a memory, kid. You just don’t want to remember. Minato’s a fucking soft touch.” 

 

Tobirama does shift over, gets up and walks over to Kabuto and sits down next to him. He shows Kabuto the silver box again, giving him a good look at it. “This is a lighter. When you do this,” he shows Kabuto how he made the clicking noise, “it creates fire.” 

“Oh,” Kabuto says. 

 

He doesn’t know what fire is. He tries to touch it, but it escapes from his hand. It’s like a little spirit, dancing in Tobirama’s hand. Kabuto’s intrigued. Then, his hand hurts. 

 

“Ow.”

 

Tobirama doesn’t look impressed. “You’re not meant to touch it.” 

“What are you meant to do?” 

“Light a smoke.” 

 

—

 

Juugo had ambled into the mess to bum a fag off someone and maybe get another drink. He’s in the mood for a dark ale. He hadn’t expected to bottle someone, much less a ranking officer. 

 

“Sir,” a girl who had been near the fight says, touching Juugo’s shoulder plate gingerly, “sir.”

 

Juugo shrugs her off, just like he disregards the mess that’s been made of the end of his bottle of wine, the wine pooling around the head of the collapsed colonel, mingling with blood. Juugo probably would have assumed the colonel was dead, were it not for the slight movement of his ribcage. 

 

“Just get a doctor,” Juugo grunts at the girl, waving her off with a flick of his hand. He doesn’t have much time for nuisances, not when he has a queen to take care of. 

 

Karin’s unharmed but enraged, and Juugo really doesn’t want to deal with her. She’s very exhausting on the best of days, but Juugo’s half hungover and listening to her whine is on his list of things he wants to do right next to breaking his own nose. 

“Where’s Sui?” he asks, which is a valid question, since her bodyguard is meant to stop her from getting into fights with people, including - no, especially - her own men. 

“What does it fuckin’ matter to you?” Karin hisses back, pushing up against Juugo’s grip on her shoulder, trying to break loose. Karin’s not a good fighter at the best of times, not really known for her strong jutsu or physical prowess. Juugo’s a mountain of a man, in his hands she looks like an angry kitten.    
“You were trying to fight a colonel, Karin. That’s not very good for our image, you know.” 

 

She doesn’t reply. She’s angry, he doesn’t know at what, but it’s rolling off her in waves and he can see the way she’s itching for a fight. It’s the itch of someone coming off a high, not quite yet crashing but already searching for that next wave. Juugo hates how he recognises it in her. He doesn’t know how to deal with her. 

 

“We should go back to your ger,” he suggests, and he hopes she doesn’t try to fight him here. It’s embarrassing, and he’s hyper aware that they have the entire mess staring at their little tête-à-tête.    
“I don’t fucking -”

“Karin,” he interrupts, tightening his grip on her arm, “we have an audience.” 

 

It takes a long while for her to agree to go back to her ger. Her face cycles through intense anger, humiliation, fury at Juugo, and acceptance. He can pick out each and every one. She doesn’t say anything (clearly, she doesn’t want to talk) and that’s fine. Juugo is fine with not talking. She shoves him back, and he lets go of her, lets her regain control of the situation. She needs it, she gathers it into her fists like the train of a long dress and squeezes tight, making eye contact with all of their onlookers and sweeping away in a huff. 

 

Juugo follows, of course, because he’s a follower by nature. Never been smart enough to think for himself. 

 

“Karin,” he says, staring at her from the other end of the ger. He’s barely over the threshold, he doesn’t want to encroach on her space in case it enrages her further.    
“Juugo,” she replies, staring at him, “you’re bleeding.”

 

He looks down, and sure enough, he’s bleeding from his hand where broken glass must have scratched him. “Oh.” He puts his hand in his mouth and sucks it, trying to clean the wound the best way he can.    
Karin shakes her head in fond annoyance. She’s not as angry now. “Come here, let me look at it, you big oaf.” 

 

Crossing the ger takes five long strides, and he kneels down in front of her, in a loose approximation of a proper bow.

 

“Come on, you don’t have to do that when it’s just us,” Karin chastises him, and it’s an old argument. She doesn’t like it because he didn’t do it with Sasuke, but he doesn’t know how to tell her that she isn’t Sasuke.   
  


He doesn’t reply or stand up, but he does lift his hand up to show her the wound. She takes his hand, gently, and then digs in with her stiletto acrylics to pull the shards of glass out. Juugo hisses loudly, clenching his teeth together so he doesn’t accidentally bite his fucking tongue off. She places the shards on her bedside table, wiping her bloody nail-tips off on her black skirt. 

 

“You could have warned me.”   
“You could not be a pussy,” she replies, flippantly. She doesn’t care. He wants to tell her to go fuck herself. “Bite me.” 

“I’m not going to - It’s a scratch, it’ll heal tomorrow. I don’t need your kekkei genkai to save me from a tiny glass wound.”

“Come on, Juugo, don’t be a little bitch. What other chance do you have to get your dick wet, anyway?”

“Karin, this is completely uncalled for, what if -”

“I can’t believe I need to make excuses to get you to fuck me.”

“You fought a colonel in the middle of the mess hall to get me to fuck you?”

“I fought him for other reasons as well, you’re not that special, sweetheart.”

“Thanks, Karin. That makes me feel so fucking good about myself.” 

“Shut up and fuck me already,” she hisses, looping her hands around Juugo’s neck and drawing him close to her, close enough that her hair falls onto his cheek as she leans down to kiss him.

“Karin,” he says, “this is a bad idea.” 

 

It’s a bad idea. She only wants him because of the memories of Sasuke, thinking that if she drowns her grief in the familiar, in someone Sasuke knew, maybe he’d come back. He wishes it would work. Having sex with Karin would probably hurt Suigetsu. This kind of thing isn’t something a friendship just comes back from, they’re not the kind of people who can be cool and casual about a sexual relationship. In the long run, it’s going to fuck everything up. 

 

He still wants it. He hasn’t been touched since Sasuke died, since his entire life started spinning out of control, and he craves the intimacy. He just wants to feel alright. 

 

“It’s not serious, Juugo, it’s just fucking,” Karin’s coy, sensual, and he knows he’s playing right into her games. He’s giving her what she wants. He probably shouldn’t do that. 

“Fine,” he tells her, and he climbs onto the bed and straddles her. 

 

—

 

“Your form is shit,” Tobirama remarks from his seat, slouching against the trunk of a tree and watching Kabuto go through tai chi forms.    
“Be kind,” Minato chastises, “he’s only just started, you can’t expect to him to know everything right away.” 

“I can tell him his form is shit, Minato.” 

“You’re meant to be his teacher, Tobirama. You shouldn’t be breaking down his confidence so early in his training.” 

“I was one of the greatest shinobi in the world before you were a twinkle in your mother’s eye, Minato, I think I know what I am talking about. I taught your sensei, didn’t I?” 

 

Kabuto pretends he doesn’t hear these interactions, when he can. They always seem too intimate for him, predicated on years of fondness that Kabuto was never privy to. Minato and Tobirama squabble a lot, and it took Kabuto a while to realise this was out of friendship and not animosity. He doesn’t know these things, none of the small details of having friends that he feels he ought to know. All he knows is the issues of the heart is what Minato and Tobirama have taught him, and he fears that is very little indeed. 

 

“Here, Kabuto,” Minato says, softly, pressing his fingers firmly against the base of Kabuto’s spine, “you ought to stand up straight. Jutsu is only ever as powerful as one’s control over one’s chakra is, and you cannot control your chakra if your stance is sloppy.” He gently pushes and pulls Kabuto’s body into a stronger stance, the lines of his form standing tall and confident like an extension of the trees and the earth. “See how much better that feels? This is how you direct your chakra to be the most effective.” 

“Oh,” Kabuto says, “thank you.”

“He’s right, kid,” Tobirama accentuates his agreement with a hard drag on his cigarette, “jutsu is often the best way to defeat your enemy. You probably can’t win a fight without having strong jutsu, and you can’t have strong jutsu when your form is shit.” 

 

“Fights?” Kabuto asks, faltering in his stance. To be honest, he doesn’t even know what a jutsu is, let alone how it would aid him in a fight. He barely knows what that means. 

“When you go back to the real world -” 

“Tobirama, we shouldn’t -”   
“How long do you expect to keep him in the dark, Minato? You can’t coddle him forever. He’s not a replacement for your boy, he’s a form for us to mould and perform our will on earth.”

“He’s his own  _ person,  _ we can’t force him to do our bidding if it’s not what he wants!”    
“He doesn’t know what he wants, he barely knows how to eat and not shit himself in public! He’s worse than a fucking child, because a child follows what it is told! He would agree with us were he himself, and I think were he to have regained his memories in this instant, he would allow himself to be used in our machinations for his own interests. Or did you forget, Minato, in your weakness, that this is your plan as well?” 

 

Minato has nothing to say to that. Kabuto returns to his resting stance. He thinks Minato has been beaten. 

 

“You young’uns have no respect for your elders. I have been around a lot longer than you, and I have seen more atrocities than you could dream of. You’re soft in the belly, Minato, pacifistic in your ways because you see him as a replacement for the son you lost. He is not your son, he will never be your son. I’ve let my past issues die for our purpose, why haven’t you?” 

 

Minato says nothing still, and he moves to the side when Tobirama gets up and strides towards Kabuto. 

 

“I am sick of coddling you, boy. Now it is time for you to understand war.” 

 

—

 

It’s been two years since they found Sasuke. It doesn’t feel like it - it feels all too long and all to short a time ago. Juugo’s tired. He’s been tired for a very long time, he’s been aching and waiting for something to turn around, something to get better. He feels like the dry ground underneath an ox’s ass, constantly getting shat on. 

 

Karin couldn’t come with them today. She had other commitments, ones she assigned others to guard her for, and insisted they went. Privately, Juugo thinks she knows she can’t handle seeing his grave again. Last year, it destroyed her for weeks, turned her into a crying mess. With all the skirmishes with Konoha that have started up again, Karin doesn’t want to be off her game, and to be honest, Juugo doesn’t blame her. 

 

How can he, when he shares her fears for the planned demilitarised zone between the Lands of Fire and Grass, when he also dreams about that seeming-near future where all Sasuke’s work is undone and Oto is swallowed by Konoha’s gaping maw?

 

So he and Suigetsu make the trek to Sasuke’s final resting place alone, two and a half paces apart. 

 

“You’ve been fucking her, haven’t you?” Suigetsu asks. If Juugo knew Suigetsu understood what a rhetorical question was, he would have thought it was one.

“Yes,” Juugo replies, because he won’t lie to Suigetsu, not on Sasuke’s death day. There’s no relevance to the day and his actions, except there are all of them.    
“I knew that,” Suigetsu says, and lapses into silence. 

 

If he doesn’t want to talk, Juugo won’t make issue with it. 

 

The closer they get to the site of the final battle, the quieter the world around them seems to get. The birds and bugs stop making noise, the ground is clear of sticks and brush that could have broken up the silence. It seems foreign, like the earth itself is respecting a death of one of her own, like the land’s chakra notices a loss from its worldly flows. It’s eerie. Juugo would be lying if he said he wasn’t spooked by the way the whole world seems to ignore this one point in space, turn its back on it and pretend it isn’t there. It seems like the whole forest is holding its breath for something, and Juugo feels like he is going along with it. 

 

The ring where Manda once lay is growing back. It doesn’t look like the crushed and broken down stretch of forest it did when Juugo returned with Karin, a few months after they had lost Sasuke. (It had been the first time he was able, since he was traded to Konoha for Naruto and Sakura, the ones who were really there for Karin when she needed it.) The land is taking it over, forming a new gate around the cemetery of one. Juugo and Suigetsu hoist themselves over broken tree trunks that have returned to the earth’s cycle and through branches woven together like lover’s fingers at dawn, pushing on in the late afternoon heat to get to the field where they lost everything without even knowing. 

 

The field is lush, sublime and cheerful, in a way it ought not to be. Juugo wishes it was dead, withering, a black hole of happiness the way he feels it ought to be. Everything is picturesque, except for the tombstone slightly right of centre, breaking the untouched paradise that is this part of the woods. 

 

Juugo knows what the tombstone says. Sasuke Uchiha, commander of Otogakure. May he rest in peace. It’s simple. It’s what Sasuke would have wanted. He was never one for unneeded fluff. 

 

The tombstone is untouched. The grave is. 

 

Juugo doesn’t run towards it, not like Suigetsu does, checking for signs of disturbances and wondering how the corpse was stolen. Juugo doesn’t try to search for the thief. He doesn’t even feel angry about this. 

 

He just ambles towards the empty hole where Sasuke’s body once lay, staring down into the soft dirt beneath his feet. There’s nothing there. Juugo, for some reason, is not surprised. He won’t interrogate that feeling now, but he will hold onto it, save it for a rainy day when he can piece together who took his best friend, and what they want with him. 

 

“Fuck me,” Suigetsu swears, trembling with fury. 

“It’s not good,” Juugo agrees. “We ought to go tell her.”

“Not it.” 

 

—

 

Obito hasn’t had human contact in over a year. He talks to Rin in his dreams, when he can. He sees her in the corner of his eye sometimes, her chakra flowing through the qi of the land, down her mountain rivers to get to the lake by his forest. She tells him stories of the everlasting snow, of the way chakra moves differently through her body when she sleeps. She sleeps so much, and teaches so very little. 

 

Obito is not alone, even though he is constrained by his solitary existence. He has been told of a day when he will be able to move, but he does not find himself waiting for this foretold happening. He is content staying where he is, growing by the side of the lake. 

 

He has friends, companions in silence. They say very little but tell him a lot: they have told him of the way the wind blows seeds to their new homes, of the emotions squirrels feel in the height of spring, of the way the earth swallows up death and feeds it into life. Obito learns, for no other reason than he wants to, and they have made it possible. 

 

In his dreams, he sees his father, and the father of his father and so on and so forth, until he dreams of Indra and the Sage of Six Paths. They call to him, and usually he turns away. He doesn’t want to hear their words, not when he can expect what they will say. He has lost his humanity, he knows, and it is a bad thing, even when he thinks it ought not to be. 

 

“Obito,” they call, “we ask of you to be patient.” 

 

Time has little meaning to Obito now, only of vague interest when he notes the passing of the seasons. Days come and go and Obito hardly notices, uninterested in mortal pursuits. 

 

“Obito,” they say, “the time is soon when we will ask of you a favour.” 

 

Obito has resolutely made up his mind to not accept. He has no intention of leaving the squirrels and his companions and his lake. 

 

“Obito,” they say, “fire is your greatest weakness, and the only way you will truly blossom. Accept your death with open arms.” 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! if you would like to contact me i'm on tumblr @toadsages


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